I never thought that someone would name their child Wii but I have been wrong before, and I am wrong now. There is, in fact, a guy named Wii and he got his name way before the Wii (console) was conceptualized. Wii Yatani is a 26-year-old graphic artist from Manhattan. No, it is not a nickname. It is in fact his birth name.

Did he have anything to do with Nintendo’s naming their gaming console? Not in the least. In fact, Nintendo probably did not know he existed until he contacted them to be their spokesperson. Even then, the company did not pay him any mind, which, I think, is just rude. If I were part of Nintendo’s PR department, I would have capitalized on the coincidence. It’s not like Wii (Yatani) would be detrimental to the company, right?

Anyhow, just imagine how the salesperson at the store reacted when she saw Wii’s name on his credit when he paid for his own Wii a couple of months ago! I would have loved to be that salesperson! Of course, Wii (the man) has gotten used to all the jokes his friends would make about his name all his life. Then again, with the advent of the Wii (the console), he has new jokes to contend with. Here’s an excerpt from the article where I discovered Yatani:

And they’ve given him the ability to introduce himself in a new way: “Now, when I meet people I say, ‘My name is Wii. I’m the original.’ ”

Yatani gets new jokes now too. His friends ask him: “Oh, Wii, are you going to go home to play with yourself?” Laughing, he said he gets that “all the time now.”

Lucky man!

Tags: Wii

A headline at the Telegraph’s web site caught my eye a few minutes ago. It read “Boy learned to drive from video games before stealing family car-
A nine-year-old Japanese schoolboy who learnt how to drive from playing video games has used his motoring skills to steal the family car and set off on a 1.8 mile journey to visit his grandmother.”

Now I know that this kind of news will certainly cause a stir in the video gamer sector. I myself cannot help but get a little bit riled up each time the media points to video games as the cause behind various violent or errant behavior. So, I won’t even go into that. What I want to focus on right now is whether or not you can actually learn skills such as driving by simply playing video games.

There are many arcade games which function as simulators. You actually hold a steering wheel in your hands and place your feet on pedals. There are even games which have real life gear shifts. In effect, it would seem that you are actually driving. I do not know how accurate the experience is as compared to the driving simulators that researchers use but I suppose it is a pretty close thing.

Now I will go out on a limb and say that yes, you can learn these skills by playing video games. Well, at least the rudimentary skills. As for the implications of this, I will not venture into that. Any thoughts?

Tags: arcade, driving

Have you ever heard of this genre of games? H-games. I wonder what H stands for? Hero? Heroine? Heck? Hell?

I can’t believe that I haven’t really heard of this term before. In fact, I just found out about the specifics today, when I read this feature article at Got Game. It details the genre:

…a genre of video game that doesn’t often find much coverage in the media, despite its significant role in the industry: The H-game. Also known as eroge (short for “erotic games”), the genre recently caught some heat and now we’re feeling a little more guilty about ourselves.

Ahh, let me correct myself. I know about hentai, I just didn’t know the term H-game. In any case, this genre has gotten some attention lately, due to the violent nature of the games. I am not really against violent games – I play them. But the concepts in some of these H-games are quite beyond my normal scope. Take for example RapeLay, which Amazon banned:

The object of the game is to stalk and rape young women. In the event that one of the women becomes pregnant from the encounter, the player must then force her to have an abortion so that he may escape the natural consequences of his actions.

There are other titles in this genre which run along the same lines. I don’t want to sound judgmental but I don’t think that these kinds of games would help the already beleaguered industry. What do you think?

Tags: h-games, hentai

We have this propensity for naming generations according to a distinctive attribute. Remember the Baby Boomers? Generation X? How about this generation? Have they been labeled yet?

If you were to ask me, I would say Generation Video Games, or Gamers, or whatever sounds better. The reason for this is a study that was conducted by Pew Internet & American Life Project. This study highlighted the fact that nearly every kid – at least in the United States – plays video games.

To be honest, we could all have made that statement – probably almost every person we know plays video games. Then again, having a “scientific” study back up your idea is something else. So what did the study find out aside from that general fact?

Ninety-seven percent of young respondents play video games. That’s 99 percent of boys and 94 percent of girls, with little difference in the percentages among various racial and ethnic groups and incomes. In fact, 7 percent of those surveyed said they didn’t have a computer at home, but did have a game console, such as Sony Corp.’s PlayStation, Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox or Nintendo Co.’s Wii.

They play often. When surveyed, half of the respondents said they had played a video game the previous day.

Their games of choice are as diverse as their tastes in music or TV. Eighty percent of respondents play five or more different game genres, with racing, puzzles, sports and action the most common. Favorites were “Guitar Hero,” “Halo 3,” “Madden NFL,” solitaire and “Dance Dance Revolution.”
The last two points do not surprise me at all. The same thing would apply to adults I know. The first point, however, was a bit surprising. I thought that despite the popularity of video games, personal computers would still be present in homes. I guess I was wrong.

One question – would you want your child’s generation to be labeled based on video games?

Tags: Psychology

I remember talking to a friend who couldn’t stop complaining about how his wife would nag him about turning his PlayStation 3 off when he was not using it. Sometimes, when he had to take a break in the middle of the game (or when his wife asked him to do errands), he would leave the system on because he had not been able to reach a save point. This would result in an argument about saving electricity.

I thought of this conversation when I read an article today about just how much electricity video game consoles use. According to a study done by the Natural Resources Defense Council, “consoles in use today consume an estimated 16 billion-kilowatt hours per year, which, the report goes on to translate, is roughly equal to the annual electricity use of the city of San Diego.”

That amount is so incomprehensible that I was left speechless after reading the figure involved! To be honest, I am very keen on conserving whatever natural resources we have and am quite particular about turning electrical equipment off when not in use. Our gaming consoles at home are always turned off when not in use – we make it a point to save the game and then shut the TV and consoles off.

My point is this: let us be responsible gamers. We already receive enough flak as it is. Let us not make ourselves another target for people who do not think highly of us and video games in general. Conserve energy!

Tags: electricity, power consumption

Video gaming is perhaps one of the fastest paced industries today. Much like many other industries that are dependent on technology, the video game sector continuously experiences changes – for the better, hopefully.

This December, gamers have something new to look forward to: the launch of Gakai’s cloud gaming service. At the head of Gakai is David Perry, who is known for creating Earthworm Jim and is one of the most known names in the video game industry. The concept behind cloud gaming services is quite simple: gamers do not have to have their own hardware to play games. Instead, all the necessary equipment – from the games to the hardware – is stored in data service centers. In this setup, the games are streamed to the gamer’s computer instantaneously.

Given that processors and graphics cards can be quite costly (at least the ones necessary for high-end games), this setup is definitely beneficial to gamers. Even better, with Gakai’s plan, games are going to be available for a variety of platforms. When the service launches, gamers are not going to be limited to the use of the PCs. Games will also be available for iPhones and other devices.

The target date for Gakai’s launch is some time in December, when it will be open for everyone. Meanwhile, gamers who want to get a taste of what they have to offer will just have to cross their fingers and hope that they get one of the private invites that the company is giving out over the next two months.

Tags: cloud gaming, data centers, data service centers, Gakai

Contrary to common belief, video games teach players empathy and not aggression. At least that is what a new study is saying. Got Game’s feature states:

Dr. Kourosh Dini, a Chicago-based psychiatrist and self-declared gamer recently published Video Game Addiction: A Guide for Parents, which includes a study that reveals video games to be a beneficial teacher of understanding the way others think. Dini reached such a conclusion after much observation–and even participation–in gameplay. In his studies, he analyzed from three different perspectives: the psychiatrist, the first-person player, and the third-person play observer. According to the book’s website, such analysis led Dini to conclude that “age appropriate multi-player video games can allow children to learn how other people think – a key aspect of empathy.”

I really like his point of view – it makes total sense. However, we cannot discount the fact that other studies – and there are more of them, I think – have results that are quite different from that of Dr. Dini’s. So which is which?

I am no expert in the matter but I suppose that this study will be enough for other researchers to take a second look at their studies. Perhaps there are other factors that should be taken into consideration. Perhaps it is not a simple matter of stating that video games make children (or even adults) into so and so people. As for me – and other gamers like, I am sure – a study like this is a good start in forcing people NOT to immediately pinpoint video games as the “evil” they are supposed to be.

Tags: Psychology, video games

Half-life, Doom, Wolfenstein and Tomb Raider have all made various impacts on the gamer today that they have become the benchmark with regards to new games that have been developed today. Ironically, they have been sought after by most people since the various wars by different nations have all the more enticed people to take on doing target practice in different levels and stages of game play.

Each providing a 3-D type of game setting, people use reflex as well as tactical maneuvers to see how they would go on defensive and offensive strategies with regards to taking on different enemies that the game caters to. As with other games, the objective is to be able to get to the next level with an allocation of lives, usually 3 to 5, depending on the programming and methodology. For what its worth, the expertise of people with regards to the game can be tested through seeing how he or she can be able to take on all comers by avoiding injuries or worse, being killed by stray bullets or grenades.

[tags]wolfenstein, doom, half-life, war games[/tags]

Tags: doom, half-life, war-games, wolfenstein

Off the top of my head, I probably would say no. As defined by Merriam-Webster, a sport is “physical activity engaged in for pleasure.” Take note of the qualification “physical activity.” Yet with today’s video games becoming more and more of a physical nature – thanks to the Wii, I think – I could be wrong. Add to this the fact that more video game developers are focusing on games that are based on real life sports. You have NBA, Madden, and so on.

Thanks to Ben of Gathering of Gamers, I also discovered that ESPN now has a whole section devoted to video games in its web site! We all know that when it comes to sports, ESPN is the undoubted king. With this development – ESPN seeming to recognize that video gaming could be considered a sport – it seems that things just might change somehow!

I can still recall the times when people generally considered video games and sports two whole different things. I have heard it said many times before – hunks play sports and geeks play video games. I think it is rather an obsolete comment, don’t you think? I just saw this feature on TV about sports stars and movie stars who are into gaming. They are definitely hunks, I would say. Anyhow, so what is wrong with being a geek?

I am deviating from the topic here, but anyway, so can we say conclusively that video gaming is now a sport? Maybe not. Until professional video gamers get big fat paychecks like those at the NBA and NFL do, I wouldn’t go that far (just kidding!).

Tags: General, Psychology, sports

Next Generation lists its top 100 games of the 21st century. While we think of game preference as a purely subjective topic, the market would usually dictate what’s hot and what’s not. And Next-Gen.Biz came up with its ranking of games of PlayStation 2, X box, GameCube vintage based on unit sales. According to the site, the analysis includes revenues made from game sales, review scores, review commentaries (again, subjective), and the number of spin-offs from the title series, among others.

So what’s the number one game? Action-, violence- (and sex?) packed Grand Theft Auto Vice City!

GTA has spent this whole generation as a juggernaut, but Vice City did everything right at exactly the right time. It polished the superlative gameplay of its smash-hit predecessor. It perfected controversy marketing without being pulled from shelves like its successor. It even managed to ride a wave of 80′s nostalgia right as the decade was having a minor renaissance courtesy of VH1 – no wonder its sales reigns supreme.

Sorry parents and prudes in Congress. It seems that violence still rules when it comes to video games. Perhaps people do need some way to unwind from the stresses of real life, and perhaps stealing cars and killing cops along the way is part of this de-stressing. Let’s just hope this doesn’t extend into real life. We’ve had enough of real life violence in the news, especially with the wars in the Middle East.